“The court has ascertained that defendant Adamov has committed fraud by stealing a major amount of property abusing his office, which entailed substantial damage to the interests of the state,” the judge said on Tuesday.

YEREVAN, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Russia said on Wednesday it will bid in a tender to build a nuclear power station in Armenia to replace an ageing Chernobyl-style plant that has provoked safety concerns.

Armenia, which imports most of its energy, has said it will close down its Soviet-built Metzamor nuclear reactor, which supplies up 40 percent of the country's power, only when it can add new generating capacity. The government said last year it would hold a tender to build a new 1,000 megawatt reactor at the site near Yerevan, which could be ready by 2016.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two of Russia's plutonium-producing reactors may be closed six months ahead of schedule this summer, a major milestone in U.S. nuclear nonproliferation efforts, a senior Energy Department official said Friday.

The official said Sergey Kiriyenko, the director of Russia's nuclear agency, Rosatom, told Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman during a 40-minute meeting Friday that shutting down the two reactors in the Siberian town of Seversk so soon was "realistic."

As 2,000 tons of radioactive cargo arrived at St. Petersburg’s port from Germany on Thursday, environmental groups took to the streets to inform city residents about the growing imports of nuclear materials and the dangers the trade imposes.

The MV Schouwenbank cargo ship, carrying containers with a total of 2,000 tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride, came from the Gronau uranium enrichment facility that belongs to Urenco Deutschland. The radioactive load on board the ship is due to be sent by rail to the town of Novouralsk in Siberia for reprocessing and storage.

Russia has admitted that customs officials thwarted more than 120 attempts to smuggle "highly radioactive" material out of the country last year.

The disclosure is likely to fuel concern about how many illegal exports were not halted. It will also lead to new fears that Moscow has failed to stop material becoming available on the black market that could be used by terrorists to make radioactive "dirty" bombs.

MOSCOW (Thomson Financial) - Russia and China will inaugurate an atomic power station in Jiangsu province on December 20, as Moscow steps up construction of such stations worldwide, a top Russian official has said.

The head of Russian atomic power station contractor Atomstroiexport, Sergei Shmatko, told journalists Russia was shaking off the stigma attached to its nuclear industry after the Soviet-era Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 and was in talks with European and Asian countries.

WASHINGTON (AP) The United States tentatively has agreed to allow limited imports of uranium from Russia, suspending an antidumping investigation that has been in place for decades, according to a filing by the Commerce Department.